Left to right at the Jewish Seniors Alliance of BC Fall Symposium Nov. 23: Jeff Moss, Joyce Murray, Anthony Kupferschmidt, Dan Levitt and Isobel Mackenzie. (photo by Alex Roque Photography)<\/i><\/p>\n
The Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia\u2019s fall symposium featured a panel discussion on the responsibilities of governments for seniors. The panelists discussed housing, transportation and healthcare services. They explored challenges in funding, staffing and service delivery, while also touching on topics such as the potential for community involvement in shaping senior support systems.<\/p>\n
The Nov. 23 gathering, which took place at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, opened with Jeff Moss, executive director of JSABC. He said provincial advocacy is \u201cat the heart\u201d of what JSA does, \u201cand bringing together politicians in this space is really important, because the conversations that we have when we meet with the provincial government, or when we\u2019re meeting with the opposition, [are] where we are advocating strongly for universal free home support for seniors in British Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n
JSA\u2019s partners in this campaign are Council of Senior Citizens\u2019 Organization (COSCO), the BC Health Coalition, the Independent Long-Term Care Councils Association of BC, Family Caregivers of British Columbia and the BC Care Providers Association (BCCPA), whose chief executive officer, Mary Polak, addressed those gathered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Polak shared that her father, who\u2019s 96 years old, is in long-term care. He has some dementia issues and needs to have some specialized care, she said. \u201cBut in the time that he was at home with us and we were trying to give him the best quality of life we could in our own home, it was a real challenge to try and support that with home health services. And we were in a better place than many because at least we had some of the financial capacity to do that, and we had the family around us. But, for an increasing number of people, that\u2019s becoming impossible, and it shouldn\u2019t be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Ezra Shanken, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which also is a partner and supporter of JSABC, introduced Shay Keil, who sponsored the event with the BCCPA and JSA, along with Michael and Sally Geller, and the Zalkow Foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cSeniors are the foundation of who we are,\u201d said Keil. \u201cYou\u2019ve built our families, our traditions and our values, and you deserve to be honoured, supported and celebrated. We often speak of m\u2019dor l\u2019dor<\/i>, from generation to generation, and that idea is very close to my heart. I strongly believe in the connection between seniors and children and everyone in between. That belief is why I\u2019m here today, and why I\u2019m deeply committed to community through volunteering, supporting and staying actively involved in the organizations that strengthen the lives of those around us, including JSA.\u201d<\/p>\n Keil introduced the emcee of the panel, Isobel Mackenzie, \u201cwho served as British Columbia\u2019s seniors advocate from 2014 to 2024, and has spent her career championing the well-being, safety and dignity of our seniors.\u201d<\/p>\n Mackenzie asked each panelist to come to the stage: Anthony Kupferschmidt, strategic lead for aging and older persons with the City of Vancouver, who has worked in similar capacities with other cities and groups, and is also a gerontologist; Joyce Murray, who has served both as a member of the Legislative Assembly and as a member of Parliament; and Dan Levitt, a gerontologist who has worked 30-plus years in seniors care, and is the current seniors advocate for the province.<\/p>\n Each panelist gave an overview of their opinions, starting with Kupferschmidt, who noted that much of what a municipality can do for the aging population requires financial support from other orders of government. However, a city can impact seniors in such areas as \u201czoning and related development charges, making sure that we have the right type of housing and the right mix of housing\u00a0 <\/span>across the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Municipalities can work with the provincial government, for example, on where care homes are located and support their development. Transportation is another key area, as are sidewalks and other \u201celements of an age-friendly city.\u201d Cities have a role with\u00a0<\/span>respect to public libraries and the accessible services they offer, community centres, senior centres, pools, arenas, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Levitt was the next to speak. \u201cCurrently, there are 5.5 million people living in our province, 1.1 million people are over 65,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, there\u2019s one in five \u2013 20% of all people are seniors. Fast forward just a decade from now and it\u2019ll be one in four, 25%\u2026. We have more people who are living longer and more people who are seniors, so 400,000 more seniors in the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n Levitt\u2019s office monitors five areas: health care, transportation, housing, income and community services.<\/p>\n \u201cThe general trend,\u201d he said, \u201cis that there are more seniors and there are more investments, but there\u2019s less available per senior.\u201d<\/p>\n As an example, he said, a quarter of all seniors are living on $23,000 a year, or less than $2,000 a month. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not that hard to go find people living in the West End in affordable housing living on less than $1,000 a month, so they really need that income support from all levels of government, they need those subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n Levitt said there were 13,000 people on the waitlist for affordable housing last year. \u201cHow many of them got a space?\u201d he asked. \u201cSix percent, just under 800 people have got a space for affordable seniors housing in our province. We haven\u2019t built enough, and there is a call right now to build more, but we\u2019re not keeping pace with that demand.\u201d<\/p>\n As well, he said, the province has been taking money away from long-term care homes, no longer funding overtime and agency nurses, for example, and this affects places like the Louis Brier Home and Hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means that an already very thin margin is now almost impossible to operate without that government subsidy,\u201d said Levitt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t invested enough either in seniors care,\u201d he added. \u201cWe did a report in July, and our July report identifies that over 16,000 people are going to be short long-term care because we\u2019re not building enough beds. There are 7,200 people on the waitlist today.\u201d The burden of care, he said, is being transferred to families.<\/p>\n Murray took the conversation in a different direction.<\/p>\n \u201cI was looking at the budget numbers about this when I was thinking about what I would be saying,\u201d she said, \u201cand the total new spending on OAS [Old Age Security] and medical care for seniors alone in the 2023 budget was $110 billion of new money\u2026. Now, that\u2019s going to tie into some of the demographics, for sure, but, when you break that down, that\u2019s $4,300 per retiree 65 and older in new money in the 2023 federal budget versus $755 for younger Canadian under 45 in new money.\u201d<\/p>\n She wondered about how well younger people were being supported. She also spoke of environmental concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it mean to be a good ancestor?\u201d she asked. \u201cAnd what do we think our society, our province, our country needs to do so that we collectively are good ancestors?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo govern is to choose,\u201d said Mackenzie, noting that governments must make decisions about how \u201cto allocate our finite resources to our infinite demands.\u201d<\/p>\n The panelists talked more about that, as well as the way in which different levels of government work with one another. Murray said governments make policies they hope will attract voters, and seniors tend to vote more than younger people, so, for example, \u201ca family with two members can earn up to $180,000 a year and still get their full OAS,\u201d she said, asking, \u201cIs that a good allocation of money?\u201d<\/p>\n Mackenzie asked a variant of Murray\u2019s question, considering how maximum monthly payments for public long-term care work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe person whose income is $200,000 a year is going to pay the same for their publicly funded long-term care plan as the person whose income is $70,000 a year,\u201d said Mackenzie. \u201cAnd so, if, on the one hand, we say, well, the people who have more should get less, which is the OAS argument, to what extent should we flip that and say, well, the people who have more should pay more when it comes to publicly subsidized long-term care? That\u2019s, I think, missing from the discussion\u2026. I think there are very uncomfortable conversations \u2026 that governments are going to have to have with their electorate and, as elected officials, you don\u2019t like to have those uncomfortable conversations, for obvious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Levitt thought the situation could be improved if governments helped people understand how much money they need to save to age well, what supports there would be for them as they age, and what people could do to support themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Murray suggested, \u201cMaybe what we need is like a citizens\u2019 assembly, to start out by identifying what are the key things that are maybe broken or need improvement so that we can be good ancestors. And then have a citizens\u2019 assembly that looks at what are the best solutions in other countries \u2026 and then create a proposal on that. I think we have to crowdsource the solutions here\u2026. We need citizens to help us solve this.\u201d<\/p>\n Kupferschmidt brought up Better at Home, a basket of non-medical services that seniors can access. \u201cThere has been public engagement into what those services should be\u2026. However, there are examples of the service that is offered in one neighbourhood in the city is different than another,\u201d he said, explaining that a \u201cmodel with all the best intentions can sometimes create some disparities as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Mackenzie stressed the complexities, both because everyone\u2019s needs and everyone\u2019s solutions are different. \u201cAnd, in the end, in those environments, generally, we try to come up with solutions that meet the greatest good for the greatest number, but that certainly doesn\u2019t meet the need for everybody all the time and that is, I think, the political challenge at all levels of government, whether they be the local, the provincial or the federal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Left to right at the Jewish Seniors Alliance of BC Fall Symposium Nov. 23: Jeff Moss, Joyce Murray, Anthony Kupferschmidt, Dan Levitt and Isobel Mackenzie. (photo by Alex Roque Photography) The Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia\u2019s fall symposium featured a panel discussion on the responsibilities of governments for seniors. The panelists discussed housing, transportation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48148,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[24534,22993,24533,4280,8601,6312,7833,24532,3225,8586,23663,9946,24326,21558,24535,7824,3714,1024],"class_list":["post-48147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-anthony-kupferschmidt","tag-dan-levitt","tag-eff-moss","tag-ezra-shanken","tag-funding","tag-governance","tag-government","tag-government-funding","tag-health-care","tag-isobel-mackenzie","tag-jewish-seniors-aliance","tag-joyce-murray","tag-jsabc","tag-long-term-care","tag-mary-polak","tag-policy","tag-seniors","tag-shay-keil"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}